


Who Are You?

by rabbitheartbeats



Series: Ink and Quill [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Gen, Mistaken Identity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:54:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22274383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabbitheartbeats/pseuds/rabbitheartbeats
Summary: Despite being a living legend, no one seems to know just whatexactlythe Warrior looks like.
Series: Ink and Quill [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1465468
Comments: 5
Kudos: 31





	1. Limsa Lominsa

**Author's Note:**

> The number of people across Eorzea who somehow don't realize that the adventurer they just asked to fetch their things is a literal god-slayer is astounding. Stories get embellished and a few details get missed. Certainly not the important ones.

The Drowning Wench is arguably the rowdiest tavern in all of Eorzea. Baderon would like to say that Momodi’s Quicksand is rowdier but Mother Miounne quite cordially pointed out that the Wench had more bar fights than the Carline Canopy and Quicksand combined.

While true that the ale and grog tended to flow more freely in the Wench than the other adventurer guilds, Baderon’s lads and lasses were a good bunch. They couldn't help bein' excitable.

He looks over towards some of the newest batch of adventurers, fresh off the boat to join the Adventurer’s Guild listening to a Maelstrom drunkard telling a tale of Limsa’s greatest adventurer.

“So them fishbacks summoned their bigges’ fish,” Troewyb draws out the words in the way of those who were too deep into their cups, while throwing wide her arms to emphasize the enormity of the Lord of the Whorl. 

Her audience, consisting of two newly registered adventurers -a brother and sister duo from Gridania and a few sailors from out of town are hanging on her every word. 

Troewyb won’t ever win any awards for her storytelling, but any tales about the Warrior of Light are ones that none at the Wench ever turn away from and Troewyb was never one to turn down free drinks.

“Since it’s a fish and all, he’s like - in the water! All sneaky and unsportin’ like! And the Warrior, well ‘e can’t hit Levi iffen ‘e can’t see ‘im! So we’s got a boat!” 

“What sort of boat?” the Gridanians ask. Troewyb blinks blearily at them.

“A big boat!” 

“I heard it wasn’t much of a boat,” one of the sailors offers. “I ‘member they put a call out for any seaworthy dinghy to help tow the thing out to sea.”

“It was a big boat! Who’s tellin’ this story?!” Troewyb snaps indignantly. “So this ‘ere boat. They stuffed it full o’ crystals! But like - shit crystals, so that the Warrior could hit him! And Leviabeetus couldn’t drown ‘im! So’s we towed out that bigass boat to where the Warrior could fight that thar fish!”

The Gridanians are hooked on her every drunken word and the lad leans forward. “You saw the battle?” he asks excitedly, to which Troewyb nods sagely before letting out an impressive belch.

“Shore did! Twas a day I shan’t ever forget!”

Baderon listens with half an ear as Troewyb launches into her version of how events proceeded as he returns to his work.

“Now that Warrior, ain’t no man like that one! I ain’t ever seen a man wield an axe like ‘im!”

He nearly becomes Baderon Ninefingers when he nearly loses his grip on one of his knives. There is no opportunity for Baderon to interject or correct the woman as Troewyb begins to loudly and earnestly describe a man that Baderon knows quite well and looks a good deal like Captain Fhrubryt.

Near seven fulms tall? A healthy green Sea Wolf throwing an axe the size of a Midlander? Yeah that sounded a lot like Loetstymm of the Quills and absolutely nothing like the Warrior of Light.

“Ahoy there Baderon!” a deep booming voice calls out and Baderon sees one of his biggest headaches approaching. Though to be fair, the Captain of Limsa’s oddest free company has been a lot less trouble for Baderon ever since the fledgling arcanist his First Mate had picked up from this very tavern had become the Champion of Eorzea.

“Seven hells - it’s him!” the Gridanians exclaim as they look over to see Loetstymm Fhrubryt - Free Company Captain jogging into the Drowning Wench. 

“Have you seen our lizard?” Loetstymm calls out, looking somewhat flustered. 

“Can’t say that I have,” Baderon answers while Troewyb’s table stares at the monstrously tall Roegadyn.

“M-Mayhaps we could be of assistance sir?” the Gridanian lass asks, knocking her chair to the floor in her haste to stand.

Loetstymm glances over at her and figures that he might as well try his luck.

“Have you seen an Au Ra, about yea high?” he says approximating a little less than five fulms. “Dark scales, silver hair? Doesn’t talk much?”

The lass turns to her brother who looks pensive. “I think we saw someone like that in the Bismarck kitchens?” 

The Roegadyn sighs heavily at their words, and he looks absolutely defeated. He knows better than to try and pull one of Guildmaster Lynsgath’s culinarians away from a task unless he wanted to be tossed off the upper levels. Bahamut could rise again but there wasn’t a Limsan that wanted to _ever_ risk being added to the Bismarck’s blacklist.

“Llymlaen help me. Why now of all times?” he mutters before turning to Baderon. “If you could tell her to return to the house as soon as she can? There’s three moogles, two sylphs and a godsdamned _dragon_ looking for her.”

Baderon nods, his expression one of likely abject confusion as Loetstymm takes his leave with a promise to bring his entire crew in soon for a round.

He doubts that it will actually happen given how busy the Warrior of Light appears to be, but it would be good to see that adventurer and hear her stories. It could also help clear up some things.

The whole table stares after the Roegadyn as he vanishes into the aethernet and they turn as one towards the Maelstrom storyteller. 

“That was him?!”

Troewyb has a look of confusion on her face as she stares at the space Loetstymm had occupied before her eyes roll back up into her head as she keels over to her audience’s panic.

Baderon sighs heavily as he waves S’dhodjbi towards that table.

What a mess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loetstymm now has a fanclub and he has no idea how it happened. Baderon doen't feel like trying to correct them - because most people take one look at the tiny Auri maiden who eats primals for breakfast and they go: _Really? Her? She did that?_  
>  Also this is funnier.  
> Troewyb's name came from the FFXIV name generator and apparently means 'Confused Woman'.


	2. Ishgard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's hard being an Au Ra in Ishgard.

In the years after the Calamity, and honestly in more than a few preceding them, the Au Ra were not the most welcome newcomers to Eorzea. Refugees have always been viewed with varying degrees of suspicion and hostility throughout history and with Garlemald's ever increasing number of conquests, they had only grown in number. 

People fled the Empire's ever growing reach from all across the star, from the streets of Dalmasca to overseas from far-away Othard seeking shelter in the fabled land of gods called Eorzea.

Any Eorzean might have told those refugees that the whole "land of gods" business was not describing some sort of fabled paradise, but a land rife with its own problems with the added benefit of semi-regular primal summonings.

Admittedly even a place like that would seem a paradise compared to a life of misery and slavery beneath the Garlean yoke, so people continued to flee towards the Eorzean city-states. 

To the Au Ra fleeing from Othard, if they had spoken to any on the Eorzean continent, they would have been cautioned with regards to picking a city-state to seek refuge in. Limsa was run by pirates, Ul’dah was rife with corruption and Gridania’s immigration system was based on the whims of the Elementals. But to the horned and scaled race, the absolute - the very absolute - last place they should go knocking for shelter would have to be Ishgard.

Advice that many had not gotten rather tragically.

With the end of the Dragonsong War and the defeat of Nidhogg at the hands of the Warrior of Light, Ishgard had lost some of its outright hostility and disdain for outsiders and Au Ra in particular. They had been saved in fact by an Au Ra, with scales as dark as night and glowing eyes. 

Stories passed through the city about how House Fortemps’ scaly ward had defeated the corrupted Archbishop and Heavensward then had saved the city, confidently striding across the Steps of Faith clad in steel and wielding a huge sword with which they smote the Dreadwyrm.

“For the last bleeding time, I don’t _do_ that sort of work lady!” Sidurgu Orl, semi-permanent resident of the Forgotten Knight shouts at another of Gibrillont's many tavern patrons as the huge man is practically restrained by his young companion.

Gibrillont cannot fault the man’s anger - this had been the fifteenth time in the past there days that he had been approached by complete and utter strangers asking for assistance with their problems.

The prickly Auri man hardly looked approachable, so why _anyone_ would think that the grumpy-looking Xaela with silver-white hair, glowing blue eyes and dressed in dark spiky armour would be willing to listen about how some merchant needed aid in collecting the love letters he had dropped in the Crosier, or how some woman desperately needed five bearskins - was beyond Gibrillont's understanding.

This particular woman however, had not been deterred by Sidurgu's curt and blunt refusal and seemed to be utterly convinced that he had assisted some friend-of-a-friend’s cousin's relative of hers in finding a missing ring and refused to leave him alone. 

“No you don’t understand, this is of immense importance! I need you to find out where that wench my husband-”

“Ma’am we don’t-” Rielle tries to interrupt when the woman turns a venomous glare at the girl.

“Silence child! You will wait your turn!” she rebukes the young Elezen so sharply that it makes the girl flinch. 

An action that does not go unnoticed by her guardian whose lips draw back into a terrifying snarl.

“ _Don’t_ you _bleeding talk to her like that_!” he growls and Bamponcet is sending him concerned looks as Sidurgu looks like he’s about three seconds from ripping the woman’s head off. The tavern owner sends a quick look to some of the hired help who nod as they begin to make their approach.

The woman might be nobility of some sort, but she was bothering actual-paying patrons of his.

The woman must have balls of Twelve-blessed adamantite as she sniffs disapprovingly, supremely unconcerned about the heavily armed man who wants to disembowel her.

“From your reputation I had expected _better_! I don’t know what House Fortemps was thinking taking in a horned savage like you!” 

“What in the seven hells does _Fortemps_ have to do with anything?!” Sidurgu demands and the odd parade of visitors to the Forgotten Knight to see the surly Au Ra suddenly makes a horrifyingly hilarious kind of sense.

The woman and so many more like her think that the man was the _Warrior of Light_. Which if one ignored one particularly important fact, Sidurgu Orl did match the profile of a silver-haired Xaela wielding a huge greatsword that the bards were all singing about. 

“Ma’am,” one of Gibrillont’s waitresses states, with a polite curtsey. “I am afraid I will have to ask you to leave the sir and young miss alone. He has declined your job. There are a good many other adventurers here at the Forgotten Knight and I am certain that-”

The woman lets out a shriek not unlike that of a mandragora which turns all eyes in the tavern towards her.

“No you do not understand! Do you know who I am?! This is a task of national importance and cannot be entrusted to just any sort of adventurer riffraff!”

Gibrillont highly doubts that the job she had been trying to force into Sidurgu’s gauntleted arms is one that even any of the most desperate adventurers are going to want to take on with that statement. He has to smother a slight smirk. ‘National importance’ she said. Given that she wants Orl to track down the woman her noble husband is tupping, he strongly doubts that as well.

“Do I look like I bleedin’ care?!” Sidurgu growls back. “Go back to whatever bloody pit you crawled out of and leave us the bleedin’ hell alone!”

The woman’s expression is one of extreme horror as she inhales deeply before letting out a shrill cry that was reminiscent of a dying dragon as she begins to screech.

“Never in my life have I been treated so rudely! Lord Aymeric shall hear of this - I’ll have you banished from Ishgard you horned abomination!” 

The argument towards insanity was growing very strong in Gibrillont’s opinion and he is of half a mind to send word to the Temple Knights that a patient from a sanatorium has managed to escape her minders.

Aymeric de Borel and the entire House of Lords would likely rather face Nidhogg in naught but their underclothes and a stick than even consider the thought of banishing the Warrior of Light. 

Sidurgu takes a threatening step forward, pushing Rielle behind him as he looms over the noblewoman.

“Look _bitch_ ,” Sidurgu snarls. “I don’t know who in the seven hells you think you are, but say that word again and I will _rip your damn tongue out and shove it down your throat._ ”

The woman gapes at Sidurgu who is pointing a heavily armoured finger in her face and it almost seems like she has realized her mistake, but her expression becomes one of outrage which for whatever insane reason she decides to direct towards _Rielle_.

“This is all your fault!” she screams at the girl who looks absolutely flabbergasted. “Whatever stupid game you’ve got the Warrior playing with you-”

Sidurgu is going for his blade and Gibrillont throws out an arm in what was certain to be a futile gesture to get the Xaela to stay his hand when Gibrillot’s hero of the hour arrives.

"Lady Olvanne?"

Descending the stairs in a beam of light from the setting sun like an angel sent by Halone herself and looking utterly perplexed by the show currently playing out in the middle of Gibrillont’s tavern is Francel de Haillenarte who has come in holding a stack of flyers.

This Lady Olvanne immediately turns towards the young lordling and practically throws herself at the lad, turning on the waterworks. 

The woman rushes over sobbing great huge ahriman tears about how the Warrior of Light so rudely turned down her request for aid, how said horrible Warrior of Light had threatened and insulted her and how it was all that little green-haired Elezen tart’s fault!

Francel stares at Lady Olvanne like she was a three-headed goobue, while his gaze flicks between Sidurgu, Rielle and Gibrillont in abject confusion.

“The Warrior of Light is not here Lady Olvanne.”

The tears disappear practically instantaneously as she gapes at Lord Francel, as she points a finger at Orl angrily and is about to begin her harpy’s screech to which the youngest of the Haillenarte family raises a hand firmly to silence her.

“I can assure you Lady Seaufoix, that this gentleman is _not_ the Warrior of Light. I can say with utmost certainty that _Mistress_ Kahkol is presently in Gyr Abania and you owe these two adventurers an apology.”

Lady Olvanne Seaufoix goes incredibly pale before turning an almost incandescent shade of crimson before storming off without a word.

  
“Seven hells,” Sidurgu swears as Rielle and the rest of the tavern burst into laughter. “I’m going to _murder_ Kahkol when I see her next.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Being mistaken for the Warrior of Light is not something any of the other job-quest givers would ever have to deal with. No one in their right mind would ever think Curious Gorge was the Warrior of Light.  
> Kahkol does end up walking in later that day, coincidentally when Lady Seaufoix returns with a bunch of Temple Knights to arrest Sidurgu for 'impersonating the Warrior of Light'.  
> They all have a good laugh at that.
> 
> Yes. I have worked retail before, could you tell? :x


	3. Ul'dah

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dedejhi Pepejhi has a problem he needs to get rid of.

Dedejhi threw his pipe to the floor in frustration as the results came in.

Foiled again!

Gambling was a sin that ran thick in the blood of Thanalan and the Gold Saucer was a place where men and women from all over came to indulge in it. From card games to chocobo races and a myriad of attractions, the Manderville family’s establishment was an immensely profitable operation.

Sin was the bread and butter of Dedejhi’s whole business model.

He had a good thing going with his race fixing gig and then this - this _bird_ comes out of thin air with its mysterious jockey. 

The problem was not in how the idiotically named Wark Kweh swept every race it was in, but in how unpredictable _Wark Kweh_ and his jockey’s appearances were. There would be stretches when that foul bird was entered in every single scheduled race from Thanalan to La Noscea and then abruptly disappear for weeks on end before appearing for a race seemingly for the sole purpose of throwing off Dedejhi’s numbers.

There had been very little information that Dedejhi had managed to dig up on the chocobo jockey other than that they were a Xaelan woman, which anyone with eyes could have figured out.

Chocobo registration forms and permits were documents that the employees of the Gold Saucer considered confidential information and remained out of Dedejhi’s reach at this time. 

His subordinates and some of his clients had asked why he had not simply done away with the bird, but upon reviewing the security measures the Mandervilles had in place to protect their assets they shut up pretty quick. The birds stabled at the Saucer were under constant observation and monitored - tampering with the birds was pretty much impossible. 

Their jockeys were another matter entirely. 

His men had surmised that the jockey was probably an adventurer of some sort, given their sporadic appearances and how none of the other chocobo riders seemed to have a clue towards their identity.

She appeared at the gates usually seconds before their race was to start and never stayed around long after for conversation beyond a stoic nod and a brief ‘good race’ before vanishing. 

No one even knew what the damned woman looked like, given that this ridiculous jockey wore an equally ridiculous chocobo helm that obscured her face when she raced.

Dedejhi needed a name. A name and then he could be rid of this annoyance that was cutting into his profit margins.

“He would not say that!” a woman exclaimed loudly and Dedejhi looked over in annoyance at an Auri girl with silver hair who was laughing with her Lalafellin friend near the Golden Saucer’s chocobo stables. 

“Which of the two of us can talk to bloody birds? And why in Llymlaen’s name did you give him so stupid a name?”

“I asked him what he wanted to be called,” the Au Ra said as the two women passed him by. “And then he warked and then kwehed so I figured the matter was settled.”

“Wark Kweh is a damn stupid name and the bird agrees!”

Dedejhi’s green eyes slid to follow the Au Ra and her friend. It seemed the Twelve were smiling on him today as the two of them headed toward the counter, chattering away. 

“If he didn’t want to be called Wark Kweh, he should have said otherwise.”

“You mean to tell me that your chocobos name themselves?!”

Dedejhi’s mystery jockey is short - even for an Auri woman- with a narrow, spiked tail and a sweet face. 

With her silver hair and dark scales she would be easy to spot in and about the Saucer. He might not have her name, but he had a profile which would be more than enough for Clever Claw to put a team together.

It would not take much to scare such a delicate looking thing like her into compliance. Dedejhi chuckled to himself as he left to contact his enforcers. 

They would be pleased with such a simple job.

* * *

“This is the boss then I take it?” the menace with an almost comically huge handgonne had asked as the door to his office had been blown off its hinges.

Dedejhi could not comprehend how this had come about. 

One minute he had been reviewing his monthly earnings, the next his door was gone and there was a knife at his throat. 

“Cactpot Cece!” a Limsan Miqo’te chirped happily from his perch behind Dedejhi, the knife in his hands bouncing dangerously close to his neck with his good cheer. Where he had even come from was a mystery. “This bene cove is Dedejhi Pepejhi, would-be criminal mastermind.”

“Don’t try to imitate Jacke. You’re shit at it.” the vaguely familiar looking Dunesfolk woman with rust-red hair and eyes snapped irritably at her companion.

Stalking forward, the woman inspected her weapon briefly before pointing it between Dedejhi’s eyes.

“W-What happened to my guards? My men?!”

“Oh they’ve been dealt with.” the woman smiled, amused. “You picked a fight with the wrong lizard.” 

“W-w-what?!”

Dedejhi’s mind raced as he struggled to figure out who was backing this chocobo jockey? Was it the Kraken’s Arms? It was somewhat well known that the Limsan pirate captain was fond of chocobo racing, but De Gorgagne was a recognizable and accomplished rider himself. He would have no need for some Auri girl to race in his place, and not as sporadically as she did. 

“Cee, I think he honestly has no idea who our chocobo racing enthusiast is,” the Miqo’te chuckled.

“Care to enlighten him Kahkol?” the man called out toward Dedejhi's broken door and a knight dressed in black and gold armour with an enormous greatsword on her back came into view down the hallway.

Every hair on Dedejhi’s body went stiff as ‘Kahkol’ approached. He had never been particularly magically talented, or proficient in the aetherial arts, but even he can sense the sheer amount of power that is emanating off of them in a sort of red and black smoke. 

Dread filled Dedjhi’s as he struggled to swallow as the knight stalked forward before reaching up to remove their helm.

A familiar-looking silver-haired Au Ra scowled at him. 

“I had to call in more favours than I would have liked to keep this from the Blades, so this’ll have to be quick you stinkin’ pile o’ coeurl shit!” the woman snarled, a distinctly Limsan twang to her words as she crouched down to glare at him. 

Dedejhi wondered why he had never hired any Auri enforcers. Their limbal rings certainly did add an unnervingly terrifying oomph to their glares.

“I have little enough free time as is. So the absolute last thing I need is some two-gil discount Lolorito impersonator trying to tell me if I can or can’t race at the Gold Saucer! I could not give two shits about your little betting rings or whatever, but how _dare you_ -!”

In what must have been the Twelve looking out for him, the woman’s linkpearl began to ring interrupting her tirade and transforming her terrifyingly angry expression into one of supreme annoyance.

“Kahkol here.” the woman snapped irritably as she turned on her armoured heel and stomped away, her spiked tail flicking sharply enough to smack Dedejhi across the face and send him sprawling onto the floor.

Dedejhi raised a hand to his abused cheek and looked up to find himself staring down the barrel of the Lalafellin woman’s gun. 

“Whatever she’s paying you, I’ll double it!” Dedejhi stammered as he tried to scurry backwards, only to find he had backed himself right into the Miqo’te, who had crouched down to grab ahold of his shoulders.

“I sincerely doubt that ya could,” the man laughed brightly, a sinister gleam in his bright blue eyes as he pulled Dedejhi to his feet. 

“The Kraken’s Arms won’t look kindly on my death, I-” he started to say only to have a bullet go skimming past his cheek.

“Azeyma’s tits! Watch it ya lunatic!” the Miqo’te cursed while Dedejhi promptly shut his mouth.

The red-headed Lalafell snarled, dark red eyes glinting dangerously as she leveled her weapon between his eyes.

“Do I look like I give a rat’s ass about what the damn squids would like?” 

Dedejhi would not soon get a chance to voice his fervent denial, as the Xaela had returned to his office, the black and red flames that seemed to surround her having grown only in intensity as she snarled, suddenly lashing out with a blast of pitch black aether which completely obliterated Dedejhi’s desk. 

A small noise of despair escaped him. That had contained all of his records! His customer lists! 

“I’m going to rip every damn one of their poms off and shove them down their furry little shite-filled throats!” the woman spat, her hands clenched into fists. 

“If that was the Gridanians calling about what I think they were, I’m out,” the Miqo’te said lightly. “I love you like a sister Kahkol, but I’m not fighting that abomination ever again.”  
  


“Same. You’re on your own for this one, oh mighty Warrior of Light,” the gunwoman stated flatly. “I ain’t ever listenin’ to that godsawful song again.”

Dedejhi’s eyes have grown wide as saucers as he stared at the Au Ra, who was glaring at him. The Warrior of Light?

He had heard that Warrior of Light was an Auri woman, but the imposing armoured figure in front of him is entirely at odds with the woman he had seen last week. 

The scowling knight in dark armour was only superficially similar to the chocobo jockey he had ordered a hit on. The Au Ra at the Saucer had seemed a lot younger. Childish, even. 

The Warrior of Light had named a chocobo _Wark Kweh_!

Dedejhi was suddenly hit by the gravity of what he had done. He had sent his men after the Warrior of Light. True he had thought she had been some young, hotshot chocobo jockey at the time, but he had tried to have the Warrior of Light - saviour of Eorzea- killed. 

Over a chocobo.

The woman in front of him is everything one would expect from those stories - where a knight in armour punished villains and helped the virtuous. And Dedejhi was most definitely a villain in her eyes.

This was the Twelve’s idea of a joke - a fitting punishment for a man as steeped in sin as him.

“Toss’im to the Flames, or whatever you want with him I don’t care.” The Warrior of Light grumbled to her companions, as a rush of aether surrounded her in the familiar manner of the Teleport spell. “You two are the worst friends ever. Sid would punch moogles with me.” she added with an almost petulant expression before she vanished into the aethernet.

“He’d get himself _tempered_ by the bleeding moogles!” the Lalafell with the gun still aimed between his eyes shouted after the Au Ra, before grumbling some not particularly flattering comments about dumb lizards.

“Well then Master Pepejhi,” the grinning Miqo’te’s face appeared in Dedejhi’s line of sight as the man loomed ominously over him. “Looks like it’s just the three of us now!”

Suddenly dying on the edge of the Warrior of Light’s sword looked infinitely more preferable than whatever these grinning lunatics had planned for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warrior of Light trivia fact - She loves her horse-birds, and has invested a significant amount of time and MGP into the most broken Grade 9 pedigree perfect chocobo that Eorzea has ever seen. It's a wonderful bird, but everyone just sighs at the stupid name of Wark Kweh (which is apparently a valid racing chocobo name. I have a terrible Grade 3 racing chocobo that's called that).
> 
> T'chev and Cece deal with Dedejhi with the cruelest punishment they can think of. They turn him in to the Immortal Flames. Specifically to their fellow Free Company member, Flame Lieutenant Sela Aliapoh - who is notorious for her nigh fanatical dislike of any and all Lalafells. Since he was turned in through all the proper channels, Sela can't just throw a Flare at him and dispose of the charred remains. So Dedejhi is going to pay for trying to hurt Kahkol in _ilms_. He is going to live a long life and is going to regret and hate every moment of it.


	4. Gridania

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some people get mistaken for the Warrior of Light. Some people pretend to be the Warrior of Light. It generally doesn't go well for anyone.

Triple Triad was a game of skill and cunning that only a true warrior could master to the level that Trachtoum Rhitswaenswyn - Parter of Seas had achieved.

With a confidence that all of Eorzea would envy, he lays down his trump card, filling the final empty space on the board. 

“Ha! Feast yer eyes on that! And by the rules o’the game, your cards become mine!” he declares triumphantly, flipping the markers on the board to red and thereby winning this here Triple Triad Tournament.

Marte Collier - age seven - looks over the board with a critical eye.

“Do they really? Five plus three is eight, isn’t it?” the girl queries towards her left elbow where her brother Sibert - age five - agrees with his sister’s assessment. 

The Sea Wolf marauder looks down at the board again and adds up the numbers on his cards, and notes his arithmetic.

Numbers have not ever been his strong suit. There was a reason he had not joined the Arcanist’s guild.

“And one plus four is five. They’re not the same at all!” the girl glares up at him, to which Trachtoum scoffs.

“There are more red cards than blue,” he informs the girl gently. “I win.”

“But you only have nine cards because you flipped all of mine!” 

“Them’s be the rules though. Plus rules have me add up all the numbers on me cards and if they’re bigger than the ones on yers, they become mine!”

“It is not! We weren’t even playing with Plus rules!”

“Bein’ a sore loser is most unbecomin’ Mistress Collier,” Trachtoum declares loftily, while the seven-year old lifts one of his cards up.

“This isn’t even a _real_ Triple Triad card!” young mistress Collier retorts as she takes a good look at his final card. 

“Yeah!” the brother chimes in solidarity with his sister. Trachtoum has always known that blood ties would always trump honour.

“Are you accusin’ me? The man who defeated Great King Moogly Socks of cheatin’ at Triple Triad?” he asked, his face the very picture of shock and horror.

“Who?” Sibert - age five - asked, mildly intrigued as he rubbed at his runny nose, while his sister glares murder at him.

“Why only the greatest threat to the Twelvewood in an age!” Trachtoum proclaims, ready to launch into the tale, if only to stall for time, and for the tournament organizers to hand over the winnings.

Marte Collier is unfortunately not distracted by the story of his alleged heroics and holds up the card that has so offended her.

“This is a card with your face and four tens on it! It ain’t a real Triple Triad card!” 

"I have never been so insulted!" Trachtoum loudly despairs at the young lady's accusations. "That there card was made special for me accomplishments! To be repaid for all the blood sweat and tears I had in fightin' King Moogle Socks, with accusations of foul play!"

"If it don't have the Manderville seal on it! It isn't a real card!" Marte declared, to her brother's firm and authoritative nod.

"Yeah! Not a real card!" the little boy parrots his sister’s words. 

“Is too!” Trachtoum retorts firmly. He has operated on the philosophy of men much wiser than him of ‘fake it til you make it’. If he says it with enough conviction, these children are sure to believe him. “Tis the rarest card of them all! Seven star rarity! The Warrior of Light Card!” 

The skeptical look both children are giving him are clear indicators that he has not convinced them of anything. He could have told them that the sky was blue, and they would doubt him.

“So you’re the Warrior of Light, eh?” a woman’s voice like a blade stabbing right into his kidneys remarks almost casually, and Trachtoum glances behind him to see a lovely Miqo’te woman with brilliantly bright green eyes glaring daggers at him, the wooden staff at her back marking her as a conjurer of Stillglade Fane, Trachtoum presumes - though the smell of ash that seems to surround the woman has him questioning his own assessment.

“Miss Aliapoh!” Marte Collier exclaims, before promptly pointing at Trachtoum. “He’s cheating!”

“I heard,” the very angry Keeper declares as she approaches while Trachtoum squawks out a protest. 

“Well, well well. If it ain’t our ole pal Trachtoum,” a horrifyingly familiar voice proclaims, and Trachtoum Rhitswaensyn turns to see the Lalafell of his nightmares step out from behind the angry Keeper.

“Tch. Of bleedin’ course _you_ would know the sort of bastard that’d cheat at a children’s card game.”

“Shut it, cat.” Ceceli Celi, Sanguine Siren snaps viciously, and Trachtoum heroically manages to approximate a smile at the two women. 

Horrifyingly the Lalafell smiles back.

“Looks like you din’t learn yer lesson the las’ dozen times did ya?” 

The looks of glee and smug satisfaction on the two Collier children add only insult to the very imminent injury that Trachtoum knows to be in his very near future.

He is very much going to regret this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trachtoum has somehow managed to not learn his lesson even after the whole Tidus and Leviabeetus thing and having actually -met- the WoL who utterly decimated him both in battle and Triple Triad.  
> His Triple Triad card is home made. What he is doing participating in a children's Triple Triad tournament in Gridania is a mystery, but as we all know, Triple Triad is not just a children's card game.  
> The grand prize of this (unofficial, organized by children for children) tournament isn't even gil or MGP. It was a moogle doll.  
> Sela and Cece were roped in by one of Sela's sisters into supervising.
> 
> None of the kids know what happened to that cheating grown-up. Miss Aliapoh won't tell them what happened and Miss Ceceli just says that he's gone where bad children go and giggles. Which of course to the children, means that they threw him into the Tam Tara Deepcroft (they didn't).


End file.
